Leon Blum

Leon Blum (9 April 1872-30 March 1950) was Prime Minister of France from 4 June 1936 to 22 June 1937 (succeeding Albert Sarraut and preceding Camille Chautemps) and from 13 March to 10 April 1938 (succeeding Chautemps and preceding Edouard Daladier), as well as President of the Provisional Government of France from 16 December 1946 to 22 January 1947 (succeeding Georges Bidault and preceding Paul Ramadier). He was a member of the socialist SFIO party, and he was one of the fathers of the French Fourth Republic.

Biography
Leon Blum was born in Paris, France on 9 April 1872 to a Jewish family from Alsace. Blum worked as a journalist before being drawn into politics by the Dreyfus Affair, and he served as secretary of the SFIO from 1916, and he was instrumental in reforming the party towards pragmatism. In 1936, he became the first socialist Prime Minister at the head of a Popular Front government. The government broke up because of financial difficulties and his refusal to intervene in the Spanish Civil War. A second period in office lasted for only a month because of his financial policies. Blum was arrested by the Vichy government in 1940 and charged with causing France's defeat, but his skillful defense obliged the government to call off his trial in 1942. From 1943, he was interned in several German concentration camps, but he became the head of a caretaker government following World War II's end. Blum helped in writing the constitution of the French Fourth Republic, and he left office in 1947; Paul Ramadier succeeded him as Prime Minister and Vincent Auriol as President. He died three years later.